Demons of Camelot
by rosydaydreams
Summary: The Doctor and Rose travel to Meladrakia, a sort of space-age Camelot planet. There, they face a monster which feeds off of pain. And no one has more pain than the Doctor. Ten/Rose, some romance, but mainly adventure.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is the first chapter of the story, so its kinda short, but I am typing up the next one as we speak. This is set in an AU where Doomsday never happened, so its after all their season two adventures. Hope you like it!**

It had started as a normal day (as normal as it gets for them). Then again, doesn't it always? One never wakes up knowing that disaster is on its way.

Earlier that day they had landed on Meladrakia, a sort of space-age Camelot. It had great jutting turrets (communications towers) and even a moat (for the genetically engineered soldierfish). The TARDIS parked in a great open space in the middle of the city. It was a giant courtyard, complete with a sparkling fountain in the middle. But as everything here, the fountain was no ordinary fountain – it defied gravity with the twisting and turning water, more a fluid sculpture than a fountain.

"It's held in place by an electric field," explained the Doctor before Rose could ask, "It's like when you charge a comb and hold it near a running tap – the water move." He was clarifying, so she knew he actually wanted her to understand as opposed to his usual technobabble.

"So why are we here?" asked Rose, as was her duty to whenever they visited a new place.

"Oh, I just wanted to show you alien Camelot!" He replied in his usual evasive fashion. They always did this little charade whenever they went somewhere, and she wasn't stopping now.

"Liar! We never go places just 'cause. What disaster are we here to stop now?" She tried her best to look serious and he tried to look offended, but neither lasted long and they were soon both laughing. Their hands found each others' and they stared up at the fountain until they heard the inevitable scream that they knew was coming. They grinned at each other…

"That's our cue!"

"Allons-y!"

…and ran towards the sound. They sprinted through a narrow doorway in to a stony alley that wouldn't have been out of place in medieval Camelot. At the end of the alleyway a horrifying sight greeted them. A body –its gender you could no longer tell- was lying there, broken, no, destroyed beyond repair. But not dead. Nothing as merciful as that. It's stomach was sliced open and its insides were spilled out onto the pavement. They looked chewed on. Blood spilled out with every beat of the visible heart, which was left untouched to prolong the suffering. This thing that had once been a person whimpered, lacking the energy and conscious thought required to scream.

"What could do this?" whispered Rose, horrified. More blood had spilled out of the person than seemed at all possible, and still it would not stop. The Doctor leaned over and sonic-ed a bit near the heart of the person. The resonations that would not even have affected a normal heart stopped this one. The person left the world with a sigh. Rose tried to stop staring at it, but her gaze remained, transfixed. The Doctor stepped back beside her and she instinctively buried her face into him. The two people standing here now seemed so different from the two grinning maniacs that had rushed here mere minutes ago.

"Whatever did this was rabid," said the Doctor as they walked back towards the TARDIS. "This was not the work of anything conscious. The only thing in the universe that might have intentionally done this was destroyed long ago by the Shadow Proclamation. Now, normally I disapprove of genocide, but there is no place anywhere for a creature that feeds off of pain. But it can't be one of those! They're dead! Gone! This was something else, something that is horribly mad and sick and rabid. Even human psychopaths aren't usually this cruel, and that's saying something!"

"Oi, rude!" replied Rose instantly, "Though you have a point. Are you sure one of those pain creature things couldn't have survived?"

"Of course it couldn't have! They were the Shadow Proclamations main targets for centuries! They died! They all died! Their survival was completely impossible…"

"Which means that's exactly what we're facing here" finished Rose without missing a beat. She knew full well that the more impossible something was, the more likely it was to happen to them. And the TARDIS never let them go places for no reason. That was confirmed by the Doctor's grim nod.

"We've got to find it and destroy it. It feeds off of pain. All pain. The pain of the victims, the pain of those around them. It won't stop until this city is a miserable mess, and it will leave no family untouched. It will find us soon…" He faded out. They both knew exactly who on this planet was the best food for a pain creature.

"Well!" said Rose, imitating the Doctor's cheerful tone when he encouraged her. "Then we'll just have to get to it first!"

"Allons-y!" he agreed, his face a grinning mask once more. And off they went.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: There, typed this chapter up. I'm uploading this for the two people who clicked on it before. Any review, no matter how brief is appreciated :)**

After a short trip to the TARDIS, they set off in the maze of small streets that sprawled the city. Rose had picked up the tazer which Jackie had forced on her for "protection", and the doctor had picked up a device he called a "monster detector", whose beeps they were now following.

"The beasty we're tracking feeds off pain – psychic energy – so, in theory, we should be able to track the disruptions that the monster is inevitably creating in that low-level telepathic field that all life has with it. Actually, we should stop calling it "the monster". That implies that its some mythical beast that we don't recognize and can't fight. It's called a daveel"

"What, like devil?"

"Devil arises from daveel. One came to earth once, long ago, and the havoc it wreaked was never forgotten. Fascinating creatures actually, feeding off feeling. The neurons of one creature fire like crazy in a certain way, it keeps the neurons of another firing. Not their fault they evolved to feed off of pain. It's the only universal feeling. All others have too many variations, too much they would have to adapt too. You know, I've changed my mind. I don't approve of the genocide. They could have thought of a solution! Synthesize pain, and give it to them! So they don't have to cause any! It could easily be done! Grow some brain meat, dead brain meat, to use as a transmitter, run the correct pattern of energy through it. It could be done with a Crashen diode connected to an ANC source, if you bombarded the thing with delta radiation to boost the signal. Voila, pain energy! Sure it's harder than genocide, and a good bit more expensive, but it's worth it if it saves a species! An entire species, don't you agree Rose? Rose?" With a start he realized that Rose was no longer following him.

Rose thought she heard a distant scream. The Doctor was busy babbling about brain meat or whatever, so she quietly slipped away. She made her way down a long chain of dingy alleys until she reached one even darker and damper than the one they found the first body in. This was where the scream was from, as the corpse at the end confirmed. This corpse – for the person had died before she arrived – had been burned to death. Apparently the creature – daveel, she corrected herself – used many methods of torture. One thing in common with the past murder was that this person had been alone as well. He (she? Rose wondered…) had been alone at the time of murder, she realized, because the daveel fed off of pain. Not shock, as a crowd would cause; nor anger, as seeing the culprit would induce; not fear of it happening to them. Pain. Pain that would come from finding a loved one dead. From knowing you couldn't be there for them, that you couldn't save them. The person's imagination would imagine worse things than had actually happened, and would feed the daveel for even longer. This creature was smart.

She walked up to the corpse. A horrid grimace was (literally) burned onto his – no, her, Rose suddenly realized – face. This woman was dragged down this alleyway, as the skid marks indicated, by something with big feet. The footprints were evidence of that. The daveel also had huge claws, if the scratched walls were anything to judge by. It was dangerous. It was powerful enough to kill everything here. Rose knew then she needed the Doctor. He would be worried by now, and she had found out enough for herself to come back. Maybe her information would somehow help. She turned around, poised to run…

…and smashed into something. She stepped back to look at it, and it looked back. She saw two giant feet as a giant claw picked her up, then proceeded with the only course of action she could think of. She threw her head back and screamed for her life.

The Doctor's blood curdled as he heard an all too familiar scream. He turned around and hurtled towards the noise, not caring how many people he knocked down. That scream filled his world, the scream that meant something was hurting her, something was killing her, that soon she would be just a bloody lump in an alleyway.

Just when he got close, the scream was cut off by a gargling noise. He looked around and found himself on a bridge. Where was she? Where? He could have sworn that the scream had come from somewhere around here, but there was no Rose. People everywhere, but no panic. No fear, no blood. No one had seen a thing. After a minute's frantic running back and forth, his brain caught up with him. The gargle. He ran to the side of the bridge and looked down. Two chocolate eyes met his gaze for a second. He saw her lips form his name, then saw her eyes shut as the last bubbles escaped. He didn't hesitate a moment before diving the 25 meters down to her, not even pausing to throw off his coat. The water was freezing, but he didn't even feel it as he dove to the bottom and sonic-ed furiously at her chains. He fumbled for the right setting longer than he should have, and she was limp as a fish when he finally pulled her out. A dead fish. A fish with no pulse and no breath, just like Rose right now. Desperately, he scanned for brain activity. It was there. Fading fast, but he would be faster. He administered CPR for what seemed like forever. Nothing existed but him and her, and the constant pumping and blowing (kissing). Pumping and blowing (you're kissing her!). He tried not to get distracted, but the thoughts kept coming. Luckily, superior TimeLord brain and all that, he kept those thoughts on different levels and never stopped, even for a moment.

After what felt like hours and what seemed like gallons of water erupting from her mouth, she spluttered to life. Chocking, tired, but alive. She smiled weakly as he laughed and picked her up. He spun her around and felt himself leaning into her face for a reason he couldn't quite fathom, when she fainted. Her pulse slowed and for one desperate moment he thought he was going to lose her, but it sped up again. Fast. Too fast. It did this a few times before steadying. It was the oxygen deprivation, the shock, the leftover adrenaline, possibly the psychic influence of the creature getting to her. She needed the TARDIS's med bay before any lasting damage set in. He started heading back, her still in his arms, when a scratchy, ghastly voice turned him around.

"You are tasty, _Timelord_."

A torrent of emotion literally flew through the Doctor as he stood there, completely frozen. The creature fed off him, eating through layer upon layer of suppressed pain, sorrow and guilt. The Doctor was helpless as he was reminded of the past, the wars, the deaths. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was a flash of blonde tumbling from his arms.


End file.
